Backfill: Carving Out a Niche

"I've done spaceships," says brick
sculptor Mara Smith. "I've done
scenes from Shakespeare —
Hamlet's hand, holding a skull —
and parade scenes and
mathematical formulas and
biological structures and all kinds of
stuff. I've even carved cartoons.
One of the stranger things I've been
asked to carve is a portrait of John
Wayne 8 feet tall on the side of
somebody's house."
Smith is one of a handful of brick
sculptors around the country who
work exclusively with brick. Most
others, she says, work as potters,
designers, masons, or "are recently
retired from the fish and game
department." Smith landed her first
brick sculpture commission without
ever having carved brick. She was
in art school studying ceramics and
won the job